Because we're half-way through March I know any day now an e-mail from my mother is coming to let me know, once again, I have not written. Telling her stories of baking cookies, making dinner, cleaning the house, doing homework, and chauffering her grandkids isn't going to help. The woman knows it takes me ten minutes to write something.
The weather, until a few days ago, was warm, sunny, and beautiful. On beautiful days Gigi and I wait impatiently for Will to get off the bus and start his walk home. We three pile in the car and head to Sonic where every day is 1/2 price drinks from 2-4.
There's just nothing as wonderful as sitting in the car with the windows open, drinking a 1/2 price Diet Coke from the fountain with the kids. We three sit, watch cars, listen to music, and talk. Yesterday Seals and Crofts' Summer Breeze came on the radio.
Music is a time machine.
In the early 80s when the weather was nice we sat in the living room with the windows open. Mom gave my younger brother and I our baths and we would sit in the living room listening to Mom's LPs in our pjs. We had a stereo that was the first thing Mom bought with the paycheck from her first job. And, since we were listening to LPs from the 70s I suppose my mom never bought any new records once she married and had kids. She, I suppose, was "stuck". There was a time when she was into Lionel Ritchie, but I don't smile when I hear Lionel Ritchie songs. His music evokes long car trips with a dad who didn't believe in potty breaks. But Summer Breeze always transports me to the house on Oak Hill and to the open windows in the living room with my mom, dad, and my brother. Those days I remember she would clean the house (alright - she cleaned the house every day, who am I kidding?) and we would sit together after dinner listening to music and talking as a family. Eventually we would come to the Seals and Crofts record and we would sit and listen to Summer Breeze. Hearing it instantly transports me to those nights. You could see the fireflies in the front yard. You could hear the whippoorwill in the woods. I loved that song. I was probably the only four year old in the world who looked forward to Summer Breeze nights.
"I like this song." Will said we sat.
"Me too." I said. "Honey has this song on a record."
The boy looks at me blankly. Records...
"We used to listen to this when I was a little girl."
"When you were seven, like me?" He asked.
"No, I would have been younger because Aunt Amber wasn't born yet. Uncle Nate was there though - and Honey and Poppy. We sat in the living room and listened to this song."
"I want it on my iPod." He said. He closed his eyes and hummed. "Honey has good taste in music." Maybe one day he will hear the song and it will transport him to Sonic in Saginaw Texas. He'll remember sitting in the car with his mom and Gigi, drinking 1/2 price Diet Cokes and watching the trains go by. Maybe it will be a special song to him too.
Our drinks and the song are finished. It's time to go home. I turn on the car and smile at him, because if he likes her Seals and Croft music, I can't wait to introduce him to Honey's Iron Butterfly record.